Heads-up steal sparks Red Sox offense in Patriots' Day win

BOSTON -- For the reeling Red Sox, the resuscitation of the offense came with some smart, small ball on Patriots' Day.

In the bottom of the sixth inning with one out, slow-footed catcher Carlos Narváez realized that Brant Hurter wasn’t holding him on and he stole third without a throw.

With the infield drawn-in, Roman Anthony's eyes lit up and he looped a 74.5-mph single into right for a game-tying hit.

That small spark helped create some much-needed momentum, that continued on in the seventh when pinch-hitter Ceddanne Rafaela went the other way for a 76-mph, two-run single that put the Sox back in front for what ended up a satisfying, 8-6 win that enabled manager Alex Cora’s club to salvage a split of this four-game series against the Tigers.

“Man, I'm fast sometimes,” quipped Narváez, who started the game-tying rally with a double off the Monster. “No, I take my chances sometimes, when the pitcher is doing the same thing over and over. He was doing the same thing the first three pitches. So I took my chances to be on third base with one out, and get any fly ball, or whatever, to score and tie the game.”

“I never thought he was going to take off, I saw him hopping,” said Cora. “I was like, ‘Oh, shoot, you know, maybe.’ And he had a great jump, you know. So that's game awareness.”

It was the second stolen base of Narváez’s career, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

As the offense got into gear in the late innings, the festive crowd of 34,880, many of them poised to watch the Boston Marathon once the game ended, made the type of noise that has been lacking of late.

“Just find a way to win,” said Cora. “We walked a lot today. There was traffic. We ran the bases well. We put pressure on opposition, and that's where we’re at right now. There were some good at-bats. So that's what it's going to take for us to score runs. And we will maximize the roster.”

In a season that has been full of stress so far in Boston, there was more when Sonny Gray walked off the mound after just 2 2/3 innings with right hamstring tightness.

Through the first 21 games, all of Boston's wins came when the starter went six innings or more.

But this time, thanks to a strong effort by a recently overworked bullpen and some timeliness from what had been a mostly tepid offense so far, the trend finally changed as Boston improved to 9-13.

Of the 19 outs provided by the bullpen, the three biggest, without question, took place in the top of the sixth. Greg Weissert came into a tough situation -- runners at the corners with nobody out and the Red Sox down a run.

The righty proceeded to strike out three batters on 10 pitches, setting up the run-scoring theatrics by the offense the next three innings.

“That was impressive. Amazing,” said Cora. “We needed that. It’s a tough game because you want your starter to go six and [then Gray's injury] happened.”

For Weissert, it was sweet redemption after some mishaps earlier in the season, when he was taken deep in three of his last five outings. Monday marked the fifth straight appearance the righty didn’t allow a run.

“I mean, in those situations you got to kind of be down their throats and make them make decisions,” Weissert said. “So you can't get cute there, and just kind of got to fill it up and get them to take some bad swings.”

In other words, Weissert pitched without nuance, something he thinks he didn't do enough of earlier in the season.

“I think early in the season, I was getting a little cute, trying to throw a backdoor cutter, backdoor sweeper, trying to do a little too much,” Weissert said.

That could go for many Red Sox players, who have been trying to recover from a 2-8 start to the season that put them in an early hole.

With the Yankees coming to town for the first rivalry series of the season on Tuesday, perhaps Monday’s win will start the team on the consistent run of solid baseball that has been elusive to this point.

“We needed a game like this,” Narváez said. “It was good for us [to] close the series like that, knowing that we’ve got a big one [coming up]. Every one is a big one for us, especially right now. Good team win.”